CORPORATE ANTAGONISM GOES PUBLIC

NEW YORK TIMESJan 25, 2010

Companies facing difficult negotiations are now taking the backroom debates into the public eye, using advertising and other publicity to generate pressure.
“Customarily these kinds of decisions are business decisions that we can make rationally,” said DAVID A. OWENS, a professor of management at Vanderbilt’s Graduate School of Management. But the narrative businesses are using now “evokes an emotional response,” he said. “It makes business a drama.”